Wednesday, June 23, 2010

This doesn't make me particularly rare among writers, of course. I've yet to meet one who, upon hearing the word "synopsis," breaks out the pom poms and starts doing high kicks or whatever. But really, I hate summarizing.

I just made a first attempt at summarizing Kissing Glass, which I'm posting below. It sucks; I know. If anyone would like to comment and offer advice on how to improve it, I would love to hear!

Kissing Glass Summary

Colette is not the typical princess. Much to her mother’s chagrin, she prefers playing baseball to attending royal balls and collects frogs rather than extravagant dresses. All of the princess lessons in the world won’t turn Colette into her older sister. Gorgeous and full of grace, Lucienne is the perfect princess—except for the horrible temper that regularly sends the line of arrogant suitors sprinting from the throne room under a barrage of anything within Lucienne’s reach.

When in a fit of temper, Lucienne smashes Colette’s favorite glass frog, accidentally breaking a curse and letting out an enchanted prince, Colette discovers that royalty isn’t all bad. Prince Frederick of Ganderland is everything all of her sister’s obnoxious royal suitors aren’t. He’s polite, willing to make his own toast, and quite possibly the only prince in the world who sees Lucienne for the fiend she is.

There’s just one little problem; according to the terms of the curse, Frederick is magically bound to marry Lucienne or he’ll turn back into a frog—this time forever. Lucienne, of course, wants nothing to do with such an un-princely prince, and Colette finds herself helping Frederick in a series of attempts to capture Lucienne’s attention, all while battling her own growing feelings for him. Nothing seems to work, and Frederick is on the brink of resigning himself to eternal frogdom when Colette discovers something about his curse that could change his life for the better. And leave hers in shards.

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Read, not written. If only I could write as quickly as I read. Correction. If only I could write WELL as quickly as I read.

But back to the reading thing. I finished re-reading The Goose Girl (because in case I haven't mentioned it before, I reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeally like Shannon Hale's writing.) I'm now more than halfway through When You Reach Me. It's a fun read so far. I haven't gotten to the "why it's a Newbery winner" part yet, but I'm sure it'll hit me at some point.

Other accomplishments of the day include trying a new pho place (fail; I'll stick with my regular place,) buying a new printer (wireless ready!) and starting to outline a fifth book in the Reflection series. I don't know if anything past the first one will ever come to fruition, even in draft form, but ideas keep popping into my head. It's not my fault I can't let my characters go! Sure, one might possibly make an argument that, since I created my characters, it is completely 100% my fault, but to that person, I say--LOOK, A CHICKEN!

Monday, June 21, 2010

First of all, shame on me for living in the DC area my entire life and not knowing anything about the annual National Book Festival until last fall. I'm sure it will be an annual pilgrimage on the Metro from here on out.

This year, on Saturday, September 25th, the Library of Congress will hold the 10th annual National Book Festival on the Mall. The site looks like it's been up awhile, but they're going to be adding more details from here on out. My favorite author (don't tell the others on my list,) Shannon Hale, I very much doubt will be there.

If you're curious as to why, just check out her blog (Squeetus) over there -------------------------------------->

I was ecstatic, however, to discover that the newest addition to my "favorites" list will be attending! So on Saturday, September 25, 2010 you'll find me standing somewhere in the winding line waiting to have Suzanne Collins (The Hunger Games series) sign my book. Come join me! But no cuts.

Sunday, June 20, 2010

So this post comes about four months after my last one and isn't at all what I promised (though I am still planning to do the top 8 rundown.)

However, with school out and my classroom packed up, I finally have a second to blog! I've also had a few seconds (okay, four days) in which to read read read!!!! (Normally I might get annoyed with myself for using extra exclamation points, but reading is deserving of them, in my opinion.)

Since school let out, I've been to the pool three times and been in the water exactly zero times. I was actually going to go in yesterday when I got to a good stopping point in my book, but there was an unfortunate accident in the baby pool, and since both pools are on one system, they closed the water. So I kept my nose in my book.

I'm in the middle of a few books, but I cast all those aside when I was invited to a book discussion for Scott Westerfield's Leviathan. I was very excited to be able to attend (since so many things occur when I am working) and it was the perfect excuse to read Leviathan, which had been sitting in a box since I bought it back in *mumbles.*

At any rate, I read it in four hours, spent another hour brushing up on the real history of pre-WWI Eastern Europe, and now I can't wait for Behemoth. Unfortunately, amazon says I must. Curses.

So then I tried to get back into The Book Thief. I still can't decide if I like it. The choice of narrator, in my opinion, is brilliant, as is all the play with colors and nuances of color, but I can't quite bring myself to love it. That's probably why it's taking me so long to read it. But I read a few pages of it.

Then I remembered a lonely little amazon box that held Garth Nix's Abhorsen trilogy. I unshrink-wrapped it (new verbs are fun, right?) but then saw another book in the box--one I'd placed in my cart because I'd heard of it and it got me free shipping. Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Games.

Could. Not. Put. It. Down. (Except when I drove home from the pool and when I paused partway through to order its sequel from amazon and to discover the third part doesn't come out until the fall. GRRRRR.) Within minutes of finishing, I downloaded Kindle for PC from amazon and ordered the Kindle version of Catching Fire, which pretty much means I can't complain about the government's fiscal irresponsibility for at least a month. Still. Totally worth it. Finished it this morning.